Some Kind of Barista
by OpheliaOtterage
Summary: "I write a bad pick-up line on your cup every time I'm your barista." Naruto/Gaara
1. Barista Humor

From : a-u-prompts on tumblr.

"I write a bad pick-up line on our cup every time I'm your barista."

Pairing : Gaara/Naruto

Tuesday mornings were never very busy in the café that Naruto worked at. He supposed that was mostly because there was a Starbucks across the street that stole most of the morning rush, but he didn't really mind. It gave him a chance to catch up baking and everything that the café needed done before his lazy coworker joined him for the afternoon shift. Their café was small, but warm and usually very cozy. It tended to fill up in the afternoons with college kids who came to study and have some cheap coffee while they were at it.

He was busy putting out some new coffee pouches when the bell tinkled announcing a visitor.

"Hey, Welcome to Mocha's. What can I get you?"

Naruto put up the last of the new pouches and turned to face his first customer of the day. He should have guessed that it was Gaara, one of his few every day regulars. He was taller than Naruto but not by much. His red hair was obviously a dye job, but it looked really nice and soft. He looked kind of punk-ish but without all the piercings or tattoos, that Naruto could see thus far. The eyeliner was a very nice adornment if Naruto said so himself. Naruto waited at the register and looked the guy over some more while the redhead wasn't paying attention. He was handsome, and king of gangly in a way that Naruto found super attractive.

The redhead, Gaara, always ordered the same thing every day. He was one of the quiet ones that Naruto preferred in the mornings and always had something nice to say about the weather or something that was going on at the café. Naruto generally did holiday themed drinks and foods and different kinds of specials. Last week, on Halloween, anyone that came in costume got fifty percent off their drink.

For some reason Gaara never mentioned the fact that Naruto put really cheesy pickup lines on his drink every time he came in. Gaara never reacted to them, not even the semi-lewd ones that Naruto did on Fridays.

Today was no different, and while making Gaara's super sugary drink, he managed to write, "If you were a vegetable, you'd be a cute-cumber" on it before handing it to the redhead. Gaara took it and chugged a good amount of it before waving and leaving. Naruto always thought it was a little strange that Gaara never mentioned it, be it by complaint or otherwise. The first time Naruto put a pick up line of Gaara's cup was originally a dare from Shikamaru who was the lazy afternoon help. He had been helping make some of the drinks for the afternoon rush of people when they overheard this complete idiot start using a bung of pickup lines on his friends. Shikamaru thought it was hilarious and dared Naruto to write one on the next person's cup and see what happened. It wasn't like Naruto was going to get in trouble since he owned the café. So he figured why not, and the next drink order that came in was delivered with, "Are you a parking ticket? 'Cause you've got fine written all over you." Naruto almost froze when he saw the punk-looking redhead pick u the cup. Naruto and Shikamaru watched with baited breath for the guy to notice, but he never seemed to, or if he did he never reacted to it. It was quite a bit anticlimactic, and so Shikamaru told him that he'd have to do it again the next time the guy came in and see if he got a reaction out of him. This had been going on for the better art of six months and Naruto still didn't get a reaction out of Gaara.

The afternoon slowly rolled around and Shikamaru showed up to work, a few minutes early for once. He seemed anxious about something and kept giving Naruto funny looks. It wasn't until a few hours later when the after school rush was over the Shikamaru brought it up finally.

"Hey Naruto? Do you still write pickup lines on that guy's cup?"

"Yeah, he still hasn't reacted yet which is kind of annoying because some of the stuff I write on there is almost inappropriate. It's like he never notices them or anything."

"Well, about that. I think he noticed," Shikamaru said, while pulling out his phone.

"What do you mean?" Naruto asked while looking at Shikamaru's phone.

"Ino showed this to me yesterday. It's an Instagram dedicated solely to pick up lines written on drink cups. Those are our cups Naruto. And it's actually really popular. It had roughly 80,000 followers so far."

"What?" Naruto said while scrolling through the pictures. Those were his cups, and his handwriting, and Gaara was in the background holding each one. He noticed the little comments on each one and the last one caught his eye.

It was the one he had written this morning with the caption, "Can he just ask me out already? This is getting ridiculous."

Naruto's face turned red and he practically tossed the phone back to Shikamaru who was giving Naruto a weird look. He checked his phone and started laughing out loud and double tapped the screen.

"Next time he comes in you have to ask him out. You've been mooning over this guy for the last few months, so you need to man up and ask him out. I'll even be here tomorrow morning for moral support."

"You'll be here tomorrow morning because you're helping me put up the new thanksgiving themed stuff."

"Semantics."

"Whatever. Help me come up with a pick up line for his cup," Naruto whined.

"Sure, as long as you promise to help me bake those weird puff pastry things you like," Shikamaru said. He hated making those since they never turned out as good as Naruto's. The rest of the night wasn't super busy, more of like a steady stream of people in and out constantly, but it still gave them plenty of time to work on finding a pickup line that was just the right amount of cheesy to suit their purposes. When they left that night Naruto was satisfied that the pickup line was perfect. He just hoped that Gaara actually showed up tomorrow like regular.

The next day Naruto was nervous and opened Mocha up an hour earlier than normal and worked on making sure the decorations for thanksgiving and Christmas were absolutely perfect. He was busy hanging up the last of the lights when the door chimed open. He jumped around and almost fell off the ladder, but when he turned around it was only Shikamaru who was inspecting the decorations to make sure they didn't interfere with the other displays and where people would sit.

"Everything looks nice. How long did this take you," Shikamaru asked. Each year the decorations got a lot nicer and more elaborate than they year before since they kept making more money. Naruto was really proud of himself when he stood back to look at all of the decorations. There were turkeys and trees and little snowflakes and ornaments everywhere. It didn't look cluttered, but the thanksgiving stuff was definitely easily removable when November was gone.

"I opened at five this morning. I was too nervous to sleep because of that damn cup," Naruto said. He really was a nervous wreck about it. When he had started the whole thing he thought it was a fun thing to do the he could laugh about later, but he didn't think Gaara would actually want something to come out of it. The red head was definitely his type because of his looks, and Naruto hoped that they would get along and things would work out.

The bell chimed and Naruto panicked before looking to see who it was. It wasn't Gaara. It was one of their other regulars, Ten-Ten, who always ordered her coffee plain black with raspberry syrup in it. Naruto didn't know how she could stomach the stuff since he tried it and almost threw up, but he didn't particularly care honestly. She was a paying customer so she could order whatever the hell she liked.

She was nice and chatted about how her classes at the university were going and whether or not she was going on to do her masters. Naruto thought she should and was always encouraging her about it. He was so engrossed in his conversation with Ten-Ten that he didn't hear the next person come in until they cleared their throat. Naruto looked up and nearly fell over. It was Gaara, who as usual, was here for his daily dose of diabetes. Naruto honestly couldn't stomach the overly sugary drink. He had tried it one time and immediately spit it back out in fear or rotting his teeth. Whenever he thought about it he could always feel the nasty film of sugar coating his teeth.

He was nervous the entire time he was Making Gaara's drink and almost dropped it once when he saw the redhead waiting expectantly near the counter. Shikamaru had already taken care of Gaara's payment and was smirking at Naruto in a very aggravatingly lazy kind of way that had Naruto glaring at him the entire time.

Thankfully Gaara was on his phone when Naruto handed him his drink and didn't notice the pickup line that he had written on it. He just took it and left while checking his notifications. Naruto wondered what he would have to say about today's cup and f he would be taken seriously. Shikamaru seemed to think so, but Naruto wasn't entirely sure about this one. Gaara was probably out or his league and didn't really want Naruto to ask him out.

Naruto kept panicking and almost fumbled with handing Gaara his cup. The redhead had no reaction what so ever which made Natuto think that he hadn't noticed the cup, and was proven right when Gaara walked out of the café with a smile and a nod pointed at both him and Shikamaru. Naruto waited with his breath held until the door had closed entirely before sighing as loudly as he possibly could. It had been a complete bust apparently. Gaara hadn't noticed a thing, which was probably for the best when the door chimed open again.

Gaara came back in with an incredibly red face and a look of shock and aw.

"Are you serious," He asked, holding out his cup so Naruto could see the words 'On a scale of one to America, how free are you tonight?' glaring back at him in thick black ink.

Naruto froze for all of a second before catching himself staring. Gaara was looking at him expectantly, his face became redder and every second that passed, before Naruto got brave enough to answer him.

"Yeah, of course."

Gaara nodded and turned to leave.

"I'm off tomorrow at seven. You can take me to dinner and we can talk about some of your more… creative cups."

Naruto nodded and said, "Yeah, I'll see you then."

He waited until the door chimed closed before turned to face Shikamaru, who was snickering at him while attempting to look like he hadn't just watched the whole thing unfold in front of him.

"Holy shit," Naruto breathed, "He said yes. Holy fucking shit."

Later, when asked, he would completely deny that he had passed out.

END


	2. Fur-st Date

Hey all, this is the sequel to 'Some Kind of Barista.' It was written off of another prompt I saw and couldn't resist.

Prompt : First date ended up just being us taking care of a box of kittens I found on the way to your place.

Naruto was nervous. He had taken off of work at the café early, letting Shikamaru handle everything for the rest of the night. He had gotten a text earlier in the day from an unknown number that happened to be Gaara, which made the blond wonder how the redhead had gotten his phone number in the first place. Not that he was going to complain since he had forgotten to get Gaara's after he had not-fainted yesterday. He was just about ready, in a pair of nice jeans and a button down that he hadn't bothered to button, let alone tuck in, and his messy hair flopping all over the place. He had thought of trying to comb it or slick it back but decided against it in favor of not looking like he was trying too hard. When he was as ready as he was going to ever be he left his apartment and went down to his car, which was a 1966 Mustang GT350 in orange that his grandfather had given him for his birthday. He had worked day and night for two years trying to restore everything to working order. It was pretty, and most importantly it was fast. He had always wanted one and had been ecstatic when his grandfather had unveiled it. His grandfather's only stipulation was that he wasn't allowed to get any speeding tickets, otherwise he would take the car back and Naruto would have to buy his own.

Within a few minutes he was on his way to Gaara's house, the address had been texted to him earlier in the afternoon, and was cruising down the road when his headlights picked up a box sitting in the middle of the road. He was going to go around it, but decided to move it out of the way so that no one would run it over. As he got closer he pulled off to the side of the road and put on his hazards before getting out of the car to move the box.

Once in front of the box he looked at it for a second trying to decide where to put it. He didn't feel right about just leaving trash on the side of the road, but he didn't necessarily want to bring it with him either, especially since he didn't know what was in it. There could be a dead body in there for all he knew and he didn't feel like taking any chances on that. So with that thought in mind he decided to look in the box first and then figure out what to do. He nudged it with his foot, making sure that nothing was going to jump out at him and then reached down to open the top of it.

He peeked inside and instantly knew that the plans he had for the night were going to go up in flames.

Fifteen minutes later Naruto was pulling at up in front of Gaara's house. Well, mansion really. He knew the moment he had turned the last corner and saw the sign telling him the name of the subdivision that Gaara lived in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. He wasn't one to be apprehensive about that kind of thing considering who his grandfather was, but one look at the box in the passenger seat made him worry a little. He sat in the car for a minute before turning the car off and grabbing the box. Gaara was either going to be disappointed, or over the moon. He had decided that there was no middle ground for this one. He had hated to upset the redhead, but he couldn't just do nothing.

He walked to the steps of the porch and took his sweet time doing it. He was balancing the box on one hand and was about to knock when the door opened and Gaara stepped out. He gave Naruto a look when he noticed the box.

"I would ask what's in the box, but I have a feeling that I'm going to find out anyway. Come on, everyone is out for the night," Gaara said. He turned and led the way into the house, and stood next to the door to close it while Naruto regained his grip on the box and stepped inside.

"So, I'm going to have to apologize. I really don't think we're going to be able to go out to dinner tonight," Naruto said, with a sigh. He was very obviously upset, but handed Gaara the box. The redhead hefted it up and then almost dropped it when it started to make a noise. He quickly readjusted it and then opened the top of it, looking inside.

"You have got to be kidding me, Naruto. Where the hell did you get a box of kittens from?" Gaara asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer, but had resigned himself to finding out anyway.

Naruto looked sheepishly around and rubbed the back of his neck, looking anywhere besides at Gaara or the box of kittens the redhead was currently holding.

"Well, you see, the thing is that I was on my way here and there was a box in the road. And I was just going to move it out of the way, I honestly was, but I decided to look inside to see if it was empty, and well. Kittens happened. I couldn't just leave them there and most animal shelters are closed around this time of night so I kind of took them?"

Gaara rolled his eyes, not that Naruto could see that, considering he was still not looking at Gaara or the box he still held. Gaara decided that since Naruto was right, then they would have to take care of them for the evening. He looked into the box and stared at the three tiny kittens that were wobbling around in the box, which had a blanket and an empty bowl that Gaara assumed had held food at one point.

"Come on. We have to get them something to eat and keep them warm at the very least," Gaara said, leading Naruto further back into the house. They went to the kitchen first where Gaara handed Naruto the box before looking in a few of the cupboards.

"Sorry. I was going to take you to this amazing place downtown with the best salsa I've ever had in my life," Naruto said as he watched Gaara shuffle around the kitchen.

"It's ok. You're just lucky that my mom is a vet. Sometimes she fosters animals that need constant attention so we should have some kitten formula around here somewhere," Gaara said. He smiled while he went through his cupboards. He was definitely glad for those little cups. He was happy to know that Naruto was a good person and kind enough to stop and try to help some defenseless kittens.

"Salsa sounds fun, but kittens are ok too," Gaara said as he pulled a box of formula out from one of the cupboards near the door that let to where ever it led to. Naruto was still very much unsure about how big the house obviously was and what kind of rooms it had in it.

"It's this mango salsa I had there once. I usually go there just for the salsa, but the dancing is good too. So how do we take care of these things? Because I've never had a kitten before and I don't know shit about them."

Gaara laughed and started looking for a kitten bottle where he knew there were some. "My mom has a room just for cats and kittens when she fosters them from her work. You would not believe how many people will jus drop off animals at the vet's office where she works and expects people to take them in," He said. "Grab the box and follow me. I don't know how old they are, but I'm gonna try bottle feeding them and if that doesn't work we'll get them some of the soft food that's already in the room."

"Sir, yes, sir," Naruto said, mock saluting Gaara. He grabbed the box and almost melted at the tiny mewing coming from it. He followed Gaara through a dining room and down a long hallway until they reached a door that he thought led downstairs. He was right. It looked like Gaara was leading him to a basement, or what he originally thought was a completely furnished house underneath their original one.

"So your mom's a vet I take it," He said, trying to start some conversation.

"Yeah, she works at the clinic near your coffee shop actually. Speaking of, how old are you exactly? You seem really young to own your own shop. And own that car. Honestly."

"I'm only tenty-four. And I'm part owner. My grandfather owns it really. I might as well with how I'm the one running it and opening it every day. The Mustang was a gift from my grandfather. He found it and got it for me as a gift. I fixed it up myself. Was really janky when I got it," Naruto answered while they were going own the stairs.

"What about you? I know your parents have money. Your house is huge," The blond retorted.

"My parents are loaded. I'm twenty-one. What does your grandfather do, anyway? He's got to have a lot of money to give you that kind of car."

"He's a writer," Naruto answered uncomfortably.

"Have I heard of him? You don't seem to happy that he's a writer as a way of living," Gaara asked.

They were at the bottom of the stairs now, and he flipped a switch that allowed Naurto to see the rest of the basement much better. Just like he assumed it was a completely furnished room. But for cats. There was tons of shit everywhere. Boxes and toys and huts and shit Naruto didn't even have a name for. Plus there were litter boxes and pads and even a cabinet which Naruto assumed had cleaning supplies and some wet food for the kittens.

"He writes… Icha-Icha Paradise," Naruto answered. He flinched waiting for the usual reaction he got from people.

"Cool. My older brother loves that series. You can take the kittens out and place them on the floor. See what they do," Gaara answered casually. "And don't flinch like that. It's just smut, not the end of the world. Although, I guess it could be seen as embarrassing if that's what my dad did. But he's just they Mayor."

"Wait, your dad is the Mayor? Holy shit I've met him like twice. Neither was under good circumstances, but still. Seems like a jerk. No offense," Naruto replied, while taking out the kittens. They stayed together at first, and then seemed to see all the fun stuff around them and went nuts.

"He's… stern," Gaara said. He didn't particularly like talking about his father, since the man was rarely ever home. When he was in the same house Gaara stayed as far away from him as possible, honestly.

Gaara and Naruto talked much more after that. They talked about friends and family and everything else going on in their lives, like work and school, but they mostly sat watching the kittens play until they tired themselves out and started wobbling closer to the two adults so they could nap warmly.

Gaara sighed as a kitten climbed into his lap and looked over at Naruto who had a kitten trying to climb his shoulder.

"You know," The red head offered, "This was actually fun. I was nervous about going on a date with you since I hardly knew you, but I really enjoyed tonight."

"I really did too. It didn't turn out like I expected, but then again nothing ever does," Naruto replied. He was getting the kitten up to his shoulder when he felt a hand on his. He turned to face Gaara, who had moved a bit closer to him, and saw the redhead was looking at him like he was contemplating something hard to understand.

"Hey, Naruto?" Gaara asked.

"Yeah?"

Gaara didn't say anything and just leaned over and gave Naruto a sweet kiss on the lips. Naruto sighed into the kiss and adjusted his head so the kiss was deeper and began to kiss back.

Suddenly Gaara pulled away with a contented sigh and said, "Thanks for the wonderful date."

END


End file.
